Gris, a master of disguised images, presents a table brimming with coffee cups, stemmed wineglasses, a large white-footed fruit compote (seen from the side and from above) containing thickly painted grapes, a bottle of red wine, a bottle of Bass extra stout ale with its distinctive red diamond logo, a newspaper, and a guitar. Yet this painting has another equally compelling identity: a bull’s head. The coffee cup at lower center doubles as the animal’s snout, a black-and-white concentric circle at left is a “bull’s eye,” the bottle of ale is an ear, and the sinuous edge of the guitar is a horn. The letters “EAU” on the wine label, which ostensibly stand for “bEAUjolais” can just as easily represent “taurEAU” (bull).
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Artwork Details
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Title:Still Life with Checked Tablecloth
Artist:Juan Gris (Spanish, Madrid 1887–1927 Boulogne-sur-Seine)
Date:Paris, spring 1915
Medium:Oil and graphite on canvas
Dimensions:45 3/4 × 35 1/8 in. (116.2 × 89.2 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, Purchase, Leonard A. Lauder Gift, 2014
Accession Number:2014.463
Inscription: Signed and dated (verso, upper left, in black paint): Juan Gris / 3-15
the artist (1915–18; sold on January 31, 1918 for Fr 500, to Rosenberg); [Galerie L’Effort Moderne (Léonce Rosenberg), Paris, from 1918; inv. no. 5114, photo no. 688]; Dr. Gottlieb Friedrich Reber, Lugano and Lausanne (by 1926–at least 1930); [Galerie H. U. Gasser, Zürich, 1944]; Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Löffler, Zürich (by 1950–d. 1972; his bequest to Giedion-Welcker); Dr. Carola Giedion-Welcker, Zürich (1972–d. 1979); her heirs, Zürich (1979–2014; their sale, Christie’s London, February 4, 2014, no. 9, sold to MMA with funds donated by Leonard A. Lauder, New York)
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. "Internationale Kunstausstellung Dresden, 1926: Jahresschau deutscher Arbeit," June–September 1926, no. 374 (as "Stilleben mit Traube").
Kunsthaus Zürich. "Juan Gris," April 2–26, 1933, no. 50 (as "Stilleben mit Traube").
Kunsthaus Zürich. "Europäische Kunst 13.–20. Jahrhundert aus Zürcher Sammlungen," June 6–August 13, 1950, unnumbered cat. (p. 35; as "Stilleben").
New York. Sidney Janis Gallery. "Climax in 20th Century Art: 1913," January 2–February 3, 1951, no. 2 (as "Nature Morte," c. 1914).
Kunstmuseum Bern. "Juan Gris," October 29, 1955–January 2, 1956, no. 23 (as "Nature morte à la nappe carrée).
Washington, D.C. National Gallery of Art. "Juan Gris," October 16–December 31, 1983, no. 30.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection," October 20, 2014–February 16, 2015, no. 28.
Bulletin de "L'Effort Moderne" no. 16 (June 1925), ill. n.p., as "Le compotier".
Internationale Kunstausstellung Dresden 1926...: Jahresschau deutscher Arbeit. Amtlicher Führer und Katalog durch die Ausstellung. Exh. cat., Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Dresden, 1926, p. 66, no. 374.
Christian Zervos. "Juan Gris." Cahiers d’art 2 (1927), ill. p. 172, as "Le compotier".
Carl Einstein. Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts. 3rd ed. (1st ed, 1926). Berlin, 1931, p. 639, ill. p. 375, as "Stilleben," 1916.
"Une Conférence de Juan Gris." Cahiers d'art 8 (1933), ill. p. 189.
W. Wartmann. Juan Gris, du 2 au 26 avril; Fernand Léger, du 30 avril au 25 mai. Exh. cat., Kunsthaus Zürich. Paris, 1933, p. 6, no. 50.
Sidney Janis. Abstract & Surrealist Art in America. New York, 1944, p. 4, no. 4, ill. p. 13, as "Still Life," 1914.
Carola Giedion-Welcker. "Juan Gris (1887-1927): Galerie H. U. Gasser, October/November 1944." Das Werk: Architektur und Kunst 32, no. 1 (1945), appendix p. 7, as "Stilleben mit Traube".
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Juan Gris: His Life and Work. New York, 1947, p. 169, pl. 21, as "The Check Table-cloth".
Ausstellung Europäische Kunst 13.–20. Jahrhundert aus Zürcher Sammlungen. Exh. cat., Kunsthaus Zürich. Zürich, 1950, p. 35.
Climax in 20th Century Art: 1913. Exh. cat., Sidney Janis Gallery. New York, 1951, unpaginated, no. 2.
5th Anniversary Exhibition. Exh. cat., Sidney Janis Gallery. New York, 1953, ill. n p. (installed in the exhibition “Climax in 20th Century Art: 1913,” Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, 1951).
Douglas Cooper. Juan Gris. Exh. cat., Kunstmuseum Bern. Bern, 1955, unpaginated, no. 23.
James Thrall Soby. Juan Gris. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1958, pp. 50, 61, ill. p. 60, as "The Check Tablecloth".
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Juan Gris: His Life and Work. New York, 1969, pp. 126, 314, ill. p. 107 (Spanish ed., 1971, pp. 116, 399, ill. p. 117), as "The Check Table-cloth".
Roland Penrose and John Golding, ed. Picasso in Retrospect. New York, 1973, p. 275, ill. no. 87, as "The Check Tablecloth".
Robert Rosenblum. "Picasso and the Typography of Cubism." Picasso in Retrospect. Ed. Roland Penrose and John Golding. New York, 1973, p. 56, ill. no. 87, as "The Check Tablecloth".
Douglas Cooper with Margaret Potter. Juan Gris: Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint. Paris, 1977, vol. 1, pp. XVII, 194, no. 127, ill. p. 195, as March 1915.
Robert Rosenblum. "Picasso and the Typography of Cubism." Picasso in Retrospect. Ed. John Golding and Roland Penrose. New York, 1980, p. 38.
Mark Rosenthal. Juan Gris. Exh. cat., University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley. New York, 1983, p. 178, no. 30, ill. p. 63.
Christopher Green, with Christian Derouet, and Karin von Maur. Juan Gris. Exh. cat., Whitechapel Gallery. London, 1992, pp. 73, 202, pl. 46.
Carl Einstein. Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts. Ed. Uwe Fleckner and Thomas W. Gaehtgens. New ed. (1st ed., 1931). Berlin, 1996, p. 777, ill. p. 508, as "Stilleben"; dated 1916 by Einstein and 1915 by Fleckner and Gaehtgens.
Christian Derouet, ed. Juan Gris: Correspondances avec Léonce Rosenberg, 1915–1927. Paris, 1999, p. 120, inv. no. 5114.
Peter Kropmanns and Uwe Fleckner. "Von Kontinentaler Bedeuteung: Gottlieb Friedrich Reber und Seine Sammlungen." Die Moderne und Ihre Sammler: Französische Kunst in Deutschem Privatbesitz vom Kaiserreich zur Weimarer Republik. Ed. Andrea Pophanken and Felix Billeter. Berlin, 2001, p. 395, no. 5.
David Cottington. Cubism and Its Histories. Manchester and New York, 2004, pp. xv, 173, fig. 6.1, as "Still-Life with Check Tablecloth".
Patricia Leighten. The Liberation of Painting: Modernism and Anarchism in Avant-Guerre Paris. Chicago, 2013, pp. xiv, 140, fig. 77.
Douglas Cooper, with Margaret Potter, updated by Alan Hyman, and Elizabeth Snowden. Juan Gris: Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre peint/ Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings. 2nd ed. (1st ed., 1977). San Francisco, 2014, vol. 1, pp. XV, xxxvii, 228–29, no. 127, ill., as March 1915.
Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow inCubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Ed. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, p. 236.
Emily Braun inCubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Ed. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, pp. 135, 312(1)n.32, no. 28, ill. p. 134 (color).
Rebecca Rabinow inCubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Ed. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, p. 175.
Anna Jozefacka and Luise Mahler inCubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Ed. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, pp. 264–65, fig. 28 (on display in Dr. Gottlieb Friedrich Reber's study at the Château de Béthusy, Lausanne, ca. 1930).
Patricia Leighten inPicasso and Rivera: Conversations Across Time. Exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles, 2016, pp. 140–41, ill. (color).
Max Hollein. Modern and Contemporary Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2019, ill. p. 29 (color).
Juan Gris (Spanish, Madrid 1887–1927 Boulogne-sur-Seine)
1913
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